


A Fortunate Woman

by SusanaR



Series: Desperate Hours Alternative Universe G version (DH AU G) [46]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Romance, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 20:39:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11517039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: Every mother’s dearest wish is that her child will be lucky enough to live a fulfilling, happy life. Against impossible odds, Gilraen’s son did.  In that way, she was a fortunate woman, and her story was one of ultimate victory, and not a tragedy at all.





	A Fortunate Woman

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Some of the lines said by Dirhael, Ivorwen, and Gilraen are direct quotes from Tolkien’s books, one of Gilraen's lines is paraphrased.

Gilraen Dirhaeliel was a fortunate woman. She was also a woman who sacrificed everything she had in the hopes of bringing about a bright future she knew that she would never see. 

Gilraen was loving. She loved her Seeress mother Ivorwen, and her wise father Dirhael. She loved her brave nephew Barant, the son of her older brother Doldaer, whose death fighting orcs had inadvertently brought about her own birth. Barant was almost old enough to be Gilraen’s father. When her son Aragorn returned to the Dunedain, Barant became one of his mentors. 

Gilraen loved her people, the Dunedain. She loved her land, Eriador which had once been Arnor, with its wild forests and great rivers. For love of her child, she left Eriador to dwell in the too-perfect beauty of Imladris. 

Gilraen was her mother Ivorwen’s daughter. Ivorwen was a great Seer. But more importantly to her people, Ivorwen was a Lore-Keeper. She kept track in her head not only of the history of the Dunedain, but also of all the generations of the Dunedain, descended down from the first Chieftain of the Dunedain, Aranarth, and all of his people. When a man and woman of the Dunedain first considered courting, they had to consult Ivorwen or one of her fellow Lore-Keepers, to make sure that they were not too closely blood-related for the marriage to produce healthy children. 

Ivorwen was also a woman who could make the best out of anything given to her. The seeds to sow winter wheat went moldy after all the villagers were drenched in rain when orcs attacked them during their trek from the old village site to the new? Very well, this year Ivorwen decides that they will grow corn. Or that they will plant extra vegetables, and they will send an emissary to trade with the village down-river, which has a longer growing season for wheat and was safe from those orc raids due to flooding on the Bruinen. 

They have run out of potatoes because the only farmer who grew them moved to a new village in the spring? Very well, Ivorwen would say, then they will make the venison stew with extra carrots instead. Ivorwen could make a meal out of next to nothing, and a winter cloak out of scraps. Orcs could attack, and Ivorwen would lead the women and children to safety. After the danger had passed, she would take a head count and get the wounded seen to, and even make sure that a meal was eaten by all the survivors. And then she would assist her husband in getting everything set back to rights the next day. 

And Ivorwen did have the gift of prophecy. It was one of the only things that would ever be written down about her, besides that she was Aragorn’s grandmother. In Ivorwen that gift ran stronger than it had in many previous generations of the Dunedain. Ivorwen’s mother Mirien had been a direct female-line descendant of Mairenwen, born Almairen, the daughter of Sabela of Numenor, a great prophetess of that lost isle. 

Ivorwen was also descended from Sabela’s younger brother Imrazor, the first Prince of Dol Amroth, through Ivorwen’s father Gilbarad, a male-line descendant of Princess Celaireth of Arthedain, the younger daughter of Ardevui the last King of Arthedain and his wife Firiel, the daughter of both King Ondoher of Gondor and also the Swan Princess Gaerwen, the daughter of Prince Galven of Dol Amroth. 

Gilraen wasn’t a Seeress herself, but she had a hint of the gift. Certain things were given unto her to know. She knew that she would die young. She also knew that she could make a difference before she did, and that the choice of how to do so would be hers to make. She planned and trained to become a Lore-Keeper, like her mother. Until she left for Imladris, she was considered the most promising Lore-Keeper of her generation. She could make something out of nothing, and she later taught her son Aragorn how to do the same. It helped to keep him fed and warm throughout his wanderings all over Middle Earth, and it gave him hope when he confronted situations that seemed completely beyond his control. 

Gilraen was her father Dirhael’s daughter. Dirhael had been a great warrior amongst the Dunedain, until a knee crippled in combat with Easterling raiders had left him unable to campaign in the winter months. Then Dirhael’s wisdom and organizational skills enabled him to become the advisor and right-hand man of his people’s Chieftain, Arador, who was the father of Arathorn. When Arador was away with the Rangers, it was Dirhael who led the villages of the Dunedain of Arnor. 

Dirhael kept track of the locations of every village and every safe hiding place in Eriador. He helped to coordinate the efforts and strategic planning of Chieftain Arador, the Dunedain’s military leader, and Arador’s captains. He also helped to integrate into that strategic planning the information brought by Nestori Fardirion, the half-Dunadan, half-Easterling spymaster of the Dunedain. And he taught his daughter many of those skills, because he loved her and because she was the child of his old age and because her way of looking at the world so often amused him. 

Like her father, Gilraen was wise beyond her years. Sometimes, that wisdom led her to cynicism, and fatalism, but she kept that at bay long enough to plant the seeds of hope in the heart of her son. Like her father, Gilraen was a great organizer. When she first took sanctuary in Imladris with her two year old son, that elven haven of learning and knowledge had been without a castellan for over two centuries. 

“The last one fled in despair after Elladan and his fellow alchemists blew up the south wing for the third time in a single year,” kind Erestor had thoughtfully explained to Gilraen. 

“Yes, and I’m sorry for that, but I really would like to be able to have meals served to my son on time, and not whenever you or Lord Elrond or your sons surface from your studies or your military endeavors for air and sustenance,” Gilraen appealed composedly. 

“Oh! Of course!” exclaimed Erestor, placing his hand to his heart in the elven gesture of remorseful regret. “I hadn’t even thought of that, Gilraen muin nin. Had you, Elrond?” 

“No, I’m afraid not,” the great peredhel lord admitted, “In fact, I’m not sure when the last time we had set meal times here even was.” 

“Two hundred and thirty-four years ago,” supplied Erestor’s son Melpomaen, “Just before poor Castellan Girdis fled in horror.” 

“That poor dear elleth never did become accustomed to Glorfindel’s habit of leaving weaponry and mud all over the place,” Erestor reflected. 

“Yes, that’s another detail on my list,” Gilraen said pleasantly, “Yesterday Ara – Estel brought me a three foot pike with a very sharp spear on top of it. He’d found it in his playroom. He didn’t cut himself, fortunately, but . . .” 

Elrond sighed, and promised, “I’ll speak to Glorfindel.” 

“If you would, that would be very kind,” Gilraen said, still calm and easy in manner, “And, as you mentioned, the mud. What happened to your cleaning staff, Lord Elrond? Is there anyone except the very hard-working and admirable Mistress Idhril?” 

“I’m not certain,” began Elrond, looking to Erestor for guidance. 

“I’m not certain, either,” confessed the blushing Erestor. 

“Most of the cleaning staff fled, er, sailed, with our former Castellan Girdis,” Melpomaen explained, now hiding a smile which heartened Gilraen, “And then we lost Eilunwen when she married Orophin about a century ago. Most of the rest of the household staff went to Lothlorien either with Eilunwen, or with Arwen, a few decades later.” 

“Perhaps you would like to hire some additional staff, Gilraen muin?” Lord Elrond said, his tone torn between hope and resignation, “I could easily make the necessary funds available.” 

“I think that is an excellent idea, Uncle Elrond,” Gilraen agreed. 

“There are several villages under the protection of Imladris only a few days’ ride away,” Melpomaen offered, “We’ve often hired folk from there when we’ve needed seasonal assistance.” 

“We have?” asked Elrond, bemused. 

“Yes, Hir-nin,” said Melpomaen, studiedly patient, “Mistress Idhril and I have normally taken care of the details.” 

“I think that a pay raise for Mistress Idhril might be in order,” Erestor said, now smiling as well. 

“What about a pay raise for Melpomaen?” Gilraen asked, not wanting her unexpected ally to go unrewarded. 

“Melpomaen stopped accepting pay raises a few centuries ago,” Elrond said, with his own patient look for Melpomaen. 

“It was actually 1,500 years ago, gwador-nin,” Erestor informed Elrond. 

Elves, Gilraen quickly learned, had a different handle on time passing than mortal men. In part because of that, when Gilraen hired household staff from the villages, she made sure to choose widows with young children when she could, or whole entire families. Doing so gave her son human playmates and partners-in-mischief, and pleased the elves by making the gardens of Imladris once more ring with childish laughter. 

Like both her father and her mother, Gilraen had a phenomenal memory and a generous helping of both intelligence and common-sense, two traits which do not often pair well together. She was both a strategist and a logistician. She usually applied those skills on a domestic settlement-wide scale rather than in a military milieu, but the young Estel still learned from her how impossible tasks could be broken into smaller, doable ones. 

And Gilraen had some traits which were all her own, both native and honed. She was kind. She was athletic, although she had no real desire to be a warrior, not like one of her friends who trained with the mighty elven warrior Glorfindel, and became one of the few women to join the Northern Rangers. 

“I’m too fond of having all my teeth to want to become a warrior,” the child Gilraen had confessed to the young Chieftain’s heir Arathorn, and to his trainer and companion Glorfindel. Both man and elf had laughed, and Arathorn had teased Glorfindel that Glorfindel had never really risked his teeth, because as an elf he could just grow new ones if he lost them. 

“Yes, indeed, Arathorn my lad, but it takes the better part of a month, and it’s quite painful.” 

Arathron and Gilraen had both stared at the tall, golden-haired elf in fascinated horror. 

“Just how many new teeth have you had to grow in your lifetime, Captain Glorfindel?” child Gilraen had asked breathlessly. 

“Too many, my starry lass, entirely too many,” that worthy had confessed, before giving Gilraen a bag of candy, with the warning to make sure to clean her teeth carefully after eating the sweets, else she really might lose a tooth or two. 

Gilraen liked pretty things. Not brazenly pretty, although she came to admire the brilliant-hued silks and velvets she wore as her distant Uncle Elrond’s guest in Imladris. Gilraen liked best the subtler aspects of beauty. The pale violet-pink of a sunset, or pretty tumbled smooth pebbles from the river. Her brother Barant liked working with stones in his off-time, and he taught Gilraen to drill holes in her collection of pretty little river pebbles, so that she could smooth them and make them into a necklace. She made many and later sold most of them, for what passed for a pretty coin amongst the largely nomadic Dunedain. 

In her youth, Gilraen was self-confident to the point of reckless arrogance. She had to be, to choose to marry Arathorn. He fell in love with her and asked for her hand. Before Arathorn asked to court her, she had never wanted to marry. Many Lore-Keepers didn’t. Lore-Keepers kept track of not just history and bloodlines, but also which seasons were good for planting which crops, and where the best sites to build summer and winter villages were. They kept track of clean water sources and soil where healing herbs like King’s Foil would grow well. For many Lore-Keepers, it was too much to do all of that and become a wife and a mother. 

Gilraen felt the seasons of Eriador in her very blood. She loved the sweet green of spring, with its fragile, hopeful buds. She loved the delicious cool-tinged warmth of summer’s dawning, and the smell of honey-suckle and taste of blackberries as the warm season continued. She loved the colors of the fall, and the hurry of harvesting and preserving food for the long winter. She loved the tart taste of apples in the autumn, and the cider which would last through the cold months, if they planned it just right (and Ivorwen and then Gilraen most often did). She loved sitting at her elders’ feet and learning their stories by heart during the dark, cold days, and she learned so much before each beautiful new spring began. 

But Gilraen fell in love with Arathorn, too, with his smile and his courage and his wit. She was selfish enough to want to marry the man she loved, and brave and confident enough to take on his tragic destiny. She would not be turned away from her determination to marry Arathorn. Not even when her father, who had a bit of the prophetic gift himself, forbade the match, and warned her that Arathorn’s years would be few. 

It was Gilraen’s mother Ivorwen who spoke for her, and for Arathorn’s suit. It was Ivorwen who advised her husband, “If these two wed now, hope may be born for our people; but if they delay, it will not come while this age lasts.” 

It was not a very promising vision on which to begin a marriage, but Gilraen was confident enough to overlook that. What twenty-two year old woman is ready to be the mother of the future savior and hope of her people? Not a one, or not a one who should take on the task, at least! But Gilraen did not shy away from a challenge, even so great a challenge, even knowing that she might have to bear the burden of parenting such a child without her husband. 

Gilraen had a gift for recognizing when desperate, lightning-quick action was required. When Arathorn died, she cut off all ties with her people, save coded communications with her mother and father, and took Aragorn immediately to Imladris for safety. She left everything she had ever known and everything she loved, to give her son the chance to grow up. And she succeeded. 

She had to share Aragorn in Imladris. Elrond loved him, and so did his sons. Glorfindel and Erestor and Melpomaen also loved him. All of those great elves taught Aragorn, whom Elrond had given the use-name Estel, to fight and to think and to plan. Gilraen knew that Aragorn could never achieve his destiny without those skills, but she still worried that living in Imladris would make him more elf than man. 

And so she found him human playmates. And she also told him stories of mortal heroes, to balance the tales of elven heroes he absorbed as the adored mascot of the community of Imladris. She told him the stories of human heroes and heroines who had happy endings, such as Tuor, Beren, Haleth, and his ancestor Imrazor. It wasn’t until much later that Gilraen realized that almost all of her favorite human heroes had married elves, and she wondered then what effect that incidental fact might have had on her son’s developing mind. 

And she told her son stories of men and women who were brave and good but who despite those virtue did not succeed, such as his many-times cousin, Prince Earnur, who saved the Dunedain of Arnor from the Witch-King of Angbad but then later died in an unnecessary duel with the Witch-King. 

“Try not to fight battles which you could avoid, unless you must to prevent something even worse,” Gilraen advised her son 

“That doesn’t make sense, Nana.” 

“It will when you are older, Estel-nin.” 

And she told him the story of his many-times uncle, the brave and doomed Prince Faramir of Gondor, younger son of Ondoher, the last King of Gondor, who had ridden to war even after his father ordered him to hold Minas Tirith. 

“His father should have known what he would do,” nine year old Estel argued, “if he knew his son, he should have known. Or his brother should have known . Elrohir or Elladan would have known that, about me.” 

“Sometimes, Estel-nin, you cannot save people from their own courage and sense of honor.” 

“Do you think his father forgave him? For defying his order to stay safe?” Estel asked, in such a manner as to give Gilraen grave misgivings as to what her son might have been up to of late that Elrond and Gilraen might not have known of. 

But she told him a mother’s truth, “I am sure that Ondoher forgave his Faramir, my heart and hope, just as I would forgive you anything.” 

And she would, and did. She forgave him falling in love with Arwen, even more quickly than Elrond did. When Elrond set the high bride price of destroying the one ring and becoming King of Arnor and Gondor, it was Gilraen who convinced her son that it was Elrond’s way of daring Aragorn to do something that Elrond had complete faith in his beloved foster-son to do. Gilraen railed against Elrond in private, mostly to her human kin and friends, and a little to Melpomaen. 

Melpomaen became one of her confidants in Imladris, along with Siana the chief cook, who ruled the kitchens, and who had hailed with joy a proponent of set meal times in the person of Gilwen. But it was Melpomaen to whom Gilraen told more of her troubles, and that was partly Elladan Elrondion’s fault. Or because of Elladan. Sometimes, it was hard for Gilraen to tell the difference between the two circumstances. 

Gilraen had her first dizzy spell when she was in her early thirties. Odd mood swings and exhaustion followed it. Her son needed to focus on his training and his schooling, so she hid her weaknesses as much as she was able. Her lieutenants amongst the household staff picked up more of her duties. Elrond, to the extent that he even noticed Gilraen being less active than usual, thought it was a good thing that she was giving herself a rest now and again. 

It was Elladan who noticed that something was wrong, and Elladan who gave her the medicine which allowed her to feel mostly better again, most of the time. 

“If we tweak the formulas here and there, we might be able to get it to work better. And there are other things we could try,” the enthusiastic elven healer told the distracted, embarrassed Gilraen as she re-tied her dress. 

“No,” she told him, “No tests. No studies. What you already have, whatever I can take quietly without anyone noticing, is good enough.” 

“Gilraen, you need to be there for your son. And to do that, you need to take care of yourself.” 

“He needs to focus on everything he is learning, in order to become who we all need him to be. You know that as well as anyone.” 

“These medicines will kill you, eventually,” Elladan told her, his intelligent gray eyes stormy with worry, “It’s the best formula I’ve been able to produce for your condition, after well over a thousand years of trying, but still. Some of the ingredients are toxic. No one who has taken these concoctions has lived beyond the age of 100.” And 100 was young, amongst the Dunedain of lost Arnor. Gilraen’s parents both lived to be well over 160. 

“So be it,” said Gilraen, “Aragorn must go out into the world and assume his duties as Chieftain of the Dunedain when he is twenty. You and I both know that he will have to travel elsewhere not long afterward to learn to command an army, because the Northern Dunedain no longer field anything larger than a company. He may need to learn his enemy better, and to do that, he will need to travel even farther from home. He can’t do any of that with anything near his best concentration if he’s worried about a sick mother at home.” 

“Sweet Valar,” Elladan said, in a mixture of exasperation, horror, and awe, “How far ahead you plan! You are incredibly terrifying. What a man you would have made!” 

“I am content to be a mother,” Gilraen answered, “Especially if my son can live, and have a happy future.” 

“Elrohir is betting on him.” 

“Well, thank the Valar for that,” said Gilraen, because Elrohir rarely ever gambled and didn’t win most of the pot. 

But Elladan still made her tell at least Melpomaen of her occasional maladies. The two elves kept her secret, until well after her death. She asked them to tell Aragorn only if he lived long enough to have the happy future she hoped for him, because she knew she’d have to push Aragorn away before her end, so that he didn’t feel torn by a child’s duty to care for an ill parent. 

When Aragorn came to her after Elrond told him of his true name and his impossible destiny, it was Gilraen who held him, and dried the tears he could not cry in front of the foster-father and many-times Uncle he could not bear to disappoint. 

“I’m sorry for lying to you, my heart and hope,” Gilraen told him, “There is no excuse for it.” 

“You wanted me to be safe.” 

“And you deserved that, and honesty as well. That I couldn’t give you both doesn’t mean that I didn’t fail you, even if it wasn’t my fault.” Gilraen was determined to carry that burden, so that Aragorn didn’t have to. 

She went with her son when he returned to their people. She helped him with the transition, with learning the skills it had been difficult to teach him in Imladris. He learned quickly and well, this shining son of hers. The Dunedain quickly grew to love him, and he them, and he did not need her so much after that. 

And that was good, because Gilraen was fading. The brilliant mind which had once been able to keep track of more history and more bloodlines and more geography than any other young Lore-Keeper in Eriador had deteriorated greatly. And that wasn’t just because she had learned to love and rely on books while in Imladris, with its beautiful library. 

“It’s the sickness,” Elladan explained to her bluntly, “The medicine should keep you from entirely losing your wits, but no, you’ll never be as intelligent again.” 

One could always trust Elladan to tell the unvarnished truth. Well, if one asked. 

So Gilraen was not a Lore-Keeper. She could still cook, and plant, and hunt. She gathered herbs and distilled them and prepared medicines, some of which she sold to Elladan or other elves from Imaldris, as well as the Dunedain. She made her stone necklaces and bracelets. Melpomaen asked her for four, one for each of him and the twins and Aragorn. Then, to her surprise, Glorfindel asked for several hundred. 

“They make excellent last-ditch weapons,” he told her cheerfully, “Just break the string, and boom! There are beads on the floor that YOU know how not to trip over, but that your opponent doesn’t. Or you have something easy to throw to make your enemy think that you’re elsewhere. Or . . .” 

Gilraen didn’t have the energy to want to know. By then, she had only the interest for necessary things. So she thanked him for his business, and told him that she had to get about it. Once she would have been curious about everything he had to say, but that curiosity had gone, along with whatever had made her able to train to be a Lore-Keeper. 

Slowly, slowly, Elladan’s promise came true, and her body stopped working. She hid it as long as she could. Eriador didn’t demand too much of her, so it was easier, there, than it would have been in Imladris. Aragorn came to her one last time, near the end. He realized that she had aged, but not why. He told her to hang on, to have hope for the future. 

“My heart,” she told her son, “I have hope for your future, but not for mine. I gave you to our people, and you have given them hope. But I have no hope left for myself. I have led a good life, in which you have been my greatest joy. Now, go forth, and continue to have faith in yourself. I want to see you triumph, so that you can be happy. That is my last wish. Make it come true, if you can. But even if you can’t, please know that I will know that you tried, and that I will always love you. Always.” 

Gilraen’s name, roughly translated, meant ‘net of stars’ in Sindarin. It was given to her for a family heirloom that Ivorwen gave to twenty-year old Gilraen to wear on feast days, a hairnet of twinkling gems that looked like stars holding back Gilwen’s auburn hair. 

But, in truth, Gilwen was the net that birthed the star of hope, Gil-Estel, her Aragorn. She was the web which bound him to his people. She was the net which held him when he learned the full weight of his fate. She was the net from which he was launched forth, on his indirect but ultimately incandescent journey. From the darkness he helped to bring the light, and then he lived with his wife and his children in its warmth and glory. 

Any mother’s dearest wish is for her child’s success and happiness, not just her own. Gilraen made her own choices. She loved and was loved dearly in return. Yes, she knew tragedy, and when she died, there was little hope that her child would know glory and contentment. And yet, in the end, he did. Gilraen’s life wasn’t a true tragedy, despite its cruel disappointments, because Gilraen’s ultimate victory came in Aragorn’s happy ending. 

And Gilraen’s victory was in her granddaughter whom Aragorn later named for her and for his wife, fierce little Gilwen, who fought pirates and led armies and loved a man named Dirhael Ethironchil, and who was loved by him in return. Gilwen, who would become the second Princess of Eryn Vorn, and the mother of Hebriel, the first woman to rule a princedom of Middle Earth in her own right. 

And Gilraen’s victory was also in Aragorn’s loving his natural son Faramir, and forgiving Faramir every time he defied his father’s will for what he saw as the greater good. Because Gilraen had taught Aragorn that a parent forgives, every time. 

And when Gilraen and Finduilas, the mother of Aragorn’s first-born son, met in the Halls of Mandos, they embraced one another as sisters in both pain and hope. They wept for their betrayals of Aragorn, whom they both loved. They wept for having died before their children faced their greatest struggles, and they wept in worry before their children won their battles. Then they laughed and rejoiced together, because their children and grandchildren lived and grew up and knew happiness and peace that they had never known. And sometimes, they wept again, because they had never gotten to share in that peace and joy. But they were both mothers, mothers who had sacrificed everything so that their children and grandchildren could have a brighter future. 

And because their children brought that brighter future into being and enjoyed it, they won. Men could call their stories tragic, and could reduce their lives to a single sad line in the history books, but Gilraen and Finduilas knew that they were amongst the most fortunate women in the Halls of Mandos. No matter what was written of them later by men on Middle Earth, they always had the last laugh, because their children had lived and thrived. And what mother didn’t have that as her dearest wish?


End file.
